Earphones
by Procrastination Fairy
Summary: A long rambling about Usagi's ears and other things.


It was not unusual to walk into the Crown Arcade and see Usagi Tsukino sitting in a large booth either with her large group of friends or waiting for them. It was also not unusual to see blood on the girl's hands when you passed her.

Granted, it was her own blood.

Of course, it wasn't typically ear blood. Usagi stuck out her tongue. Ear blood just so _gross_! As she was saying before, it was usually knee blood or shin blood or elbow blood or anywhere-you-can-land-on-or-manage-to-scrape blood. Usually, the blood on Usagi's hands was from one of her many incidents and she had simply been trying to clean it off herself. One would have thought that a klutz such as herself would know by then that wiping blood with one's hands smeared it everywhere, but whether Usagi was unaware of this or she chose to continue anyway is unimportant. The whole point of this paragraph is that Usagi's ears were bleeding.

Again, it's not what you think! There was nothing terrible sounding in sight!

Usagi had tiny ears. Little itty bitty ears that if one happened to notice, one would surely be prone to gawking. Her ears were usually revealed because of her classic hairstyle, but the wisps of blonde hair that hung by her ears moved when she was bouncing around (because she was aptly named) usually covered them. Thus, very few knew of Usagi's dilemma.

The first dilemma was in fact, Usagi's hairstyle. It was conveniently placed just in the right spot that it prevented her from wearing headphones unless she left it down. At home, Usagi _did_ usually have her hair down. The "odangos" (as dubbed by Mamoru the Jerk) were rather heavy, particularly with the pigtails. When her hair was left alone, it was much easier to bear and gave way to the gentle waves. As much as the girl loved her hair down, it was habit to put it up and sometimes she thought it was more than habit, but as much as Usagi liked to pretend that she was some long lost princess, she looked way too much like her mother for anyone to even speak up. Anyway, when Usagi was at home, she would wear headphones. However, out in public, with her hair up, this was impossible. Usagi carried around a pair of earphones instead, and whenever she felt like listening to her iPhone, Usagi would.

Usagi enjoyed it. Usagi's _ears_ on the other hand didn't. As was said before, Usagi had tiny ears and the earphones didn't fit in properly. The sound was terrible, most people around could hear it, and most of all, her ears _burned_ when she had earphones it. But it was worth it.

Or at least she had thought. The burning in her ears had actually been the making of blisters, one of which popped and left a scab. Usagi had reached up to feel her ears and blood immediately started pouring.

Usagi sighed. She couldn't tell Luna about this. Luna already thought she kind of a ditz. This was pretty bad.

And as so, another thing was added to list of not unusual.

It was not unusual to see Usagi staring at her iPhone sadly.

To Chiba Mamoru, 17-year-old 11th grader in high school and Usagi's arguing partner, it _was_ a strange occurrence. He took a seat next to the girl whom was in fact waiting for her friends. He took notice of the blood on her hands.

"How'd you fall this time, Odango?"

Usagi turned and scowled. She said, "You are so annoying! Can't you just leave me alone?" She huffed. Like she always did when she huffed, Usagi reached up and brushed her hair away from her ears. Mamoru took notice of her tiny ears. He then took notice of the blood. Fear filled him. Mamoru was Tuxedo Mask, in many senses of the word, her partner, and although she was oblivious of his identity, he wasn't of hers. He worried that something bad had happened to her when he couldn't appear in battle. Usagi, who wasn't just oblivious of identities but the things happening around her, took a drink of her milkshake. Mamoru grabbed her wrist, freezing the girl. She turned to him, unable to remove the straw from her mouth.

He demanded, "What happened?"

Usagi's reply of "What do you mean?" was muffled by her mouth's contents. She examined her body for any bruises or cuts that she couldn't excuse because she was a klutz. Some battle injuries were a little too familiar for anyone that happened to be nearby. Usagi couldn't see anything besides the usual faded yellow internal bleeding, a few fresh bright blue-ish bruises, and some cuts from shaving. There was nothing on her body from a recent battle. With the help of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus, she didn't really have a chance to get injured anymore.

"Your ear!" cried Mamoru, who was blatantly exasperated.

Usagi wasn't too slow about that. A large blush graced her face. Perhaps had she been a bit more aware of the pain, she could have prevented this, but she was nearly immune to pain by now.

She mumbled her explanation. "Apparently, people with small ears can get blisters from earphones."

Mamoru laughed. He grabbed his school bag and took out a pair of old, cheap headphones. "Wanna borrow mine?"

Usagi shook her head. "See these?" she said exaggeratedly pointing to her hair. "Doesn't exactly work."

Mamoru reached over to her hair. He took a hold of the glittery pink ponytail holder she was wearing. It was hard to move; Usagi's hair was thick and even the toughest ponytail holders were strained to hold it. Taking it down was a nightmare, but Mamoru removed it. Underneath was a white one that had silver glitter. It held her hair in a pigtail. When he removed that, half of her hair fell down, partially laying on the seat. He moved to the other side. The white one was on top while the pink underneath. He leaned back to admire her.

Usagi was a pretty girl, but nothing too remarkable. Not as much as she could have been. She was more preoccupied with having fun and being Sailor Moon. Putting on make-up and picking out super-cute outfits was nice now and then, but it took out of her sleep time. If anything was to be said of her beauty, she was blessed to look nice with her hair back, unlike some people. Have you ever wondered why acne commercials always use before pictures of girls with ponytails? Usagi seemed destined to wear her hairstyle. Mamoru was happy that he got to see her hair down though. It was a nice change. He could picture her laying on his bed, hair down. It was intimate.

Perhaps the destiny of Usagi's hair was not the only one realized that day.

Usagi could feel her face flush as Mamoru played with her hair. With the good-looking-hair-back blessing came the curse of redhead-in-a-blonde's-body. Usagi's temper could rival Rei's when she was mad enough and she blushed maybe a little too easily and harshly. As he took her hair down, she wanted to sigh. Letting him see her like this felt intimate and special (never mind that the arcade was crowded and quite a few people were looking at the sight of her hair—it was unusual, after all). She liked it.

"Here," said Mamoru, putting the headphones on for her.

Usagi jerked away from him. She reminded, "My ears are bloody."

"I don't mind your blood on any of my things," he remarked. After a moment, Mamoru noticed the innuendo. (Usagi wasn't the only easy blusher in the room.) He jeered at himself. He hadn't meant _that_.

The blonde hadn't really noticed until she glanced up to thank him. She ran his words through her head again. Oh! Usagi had picked up on some things from Makoto's remarks. She pretended she hadn't noticed. He was really embarrassed and hadn't meant to say something that could be so easily misconstrued. He wasn't like that, and if he was, he wouldn't have argued with her so much.

Usagi plugged the headphones in and grinned as her music started. Mamoru leaned over. Neither noticed that their position hid her head from anyone's view. They wouldn't have cared anyway. That was an intimate thing.

**It's really just a bunch of rambling, but I don't really care. It doesn't fit anywhere in the Sailor Moon universe. I just felt like writing and this happened.**

**Blisters in ears really can happen though. I'm warning you—if your ears hurt when you put earphones in and the slowly seems to get worse, **_**stop**_**! It's very painful. Please, trust me and Usagi.**


End file.
